Climate & Environment Review: February 17, 2006

Climate & Environment Review
February 17, 2006

Climate & Environment Weekly is brought to you by The Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP). CSPP is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization.

CSPP relies on scientific experts in many nations and the vast body of peer-reviewed literature to help lawmakers, policy makers, and the media distinguish between scientific findings that are agenda-driven and those that are based on accepted scientific methods and practices. In a timely manner, the Center's Science Watch Team alerts policy makers, the media, and the public to unreliable scientific claims and unjustified alarmism which often lead to public harm. We strive for a fair and balanced examination of science.

International study on Arctic climate change produces startling findings
WINNIPEG (CP) - An extensive international study on the effects of climate change in the Arctic has reached some startling conclusions on issues ranging from how fast polar ice is melting to the impact on Inuit
communities... >>Read More<<

The Climate Forest for the Trees
A recent article appearing in the journal Nature [1] discusses the finding of a new source of atmospheric methane from plant growth, in particular from forests. Methane is a greenhouse gas. Emissions of methane, like those of its more famous counterpart carbon dioxide, have been increasing during the last two centuries as the planet's population and economic activity have increased... >>Read More<<

REPORTERS FIND SCIENCE JOURNALS HARDER TO TRUST
When the journal Science recently retracted two papers by the South Korean researcher Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, it officially confirmed what he had denied for months: Dr. Hwang had fabricated evidence that he had cloned human cells... >>Read More<<

Another Little Ice Age Fingerprint From Chile
In another article recently reviewed on our website, Koch and Kilian (2005) studied the moraines of several Chilean glaciers, documenting their advance during the global chill of the Little Ice Age... >>Read More<<

A Consensus About Consensus
"The vast majority of the most respected environmental scientists from all over the world have sounded a clear and urgent alarm. …these scientists are telling the people of every nation that global warming caused by human activities is becoming a serious threat to our common future."
-- Al Gore, MoveOn.org, January 2004... >>Read More<<

ESA SATELLITE SURVEY SHOWS GROWTH OF GREENLAND ICE SHEETS
Researchers have utilised more than a decade's worth of data from radar altimeters on ESA's ERS satellites to produce the most detailed picture yet of thickness changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet... >>Read More<<

Sen. Murkowski tackles global warming
WASHINGTON--Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Monday that she believes man-made gases are contributing to global warming and urged government action to combat the trend, but she stopped short of endorsing legislation to cap U.S. production of such gases... >>Read More<<

GLOBAL WARMING MIGHT BE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH
Global warming may be making the common cold season shorter in cool countries like Canada, says a new study from Britain that links warmer temperatures to earlier relief from colds... >>Read More<<

Journalism's Sparse Harvest
Occasionally, I over-react to the inaccuracies and ideological bias peddled by the New York Times in what are supposedly "news" stories. Sometimes, I mutter an invective and aver that the Times is good for nothing. But that's an over-statement: it's still fine for wrapping fish... >>Read More<<

NIMBY POLITICS - LOVELOCK'S REAL AGENDA
James Lovelock was the darling of the greens, a pioneer who saw the Earth as a self-regulating entity under threat from global warming ... then a wind farm was planned near his home... >>Read More<<

Sea Level - Is It Rising as a Result of the Melting of Land-Based Glacial Ice?
Carton et al. explore this question "using the new eddy-permitting Simple Ocean Data Assimilation version 1.2 (SODA 1.2) reanalysis of global temperature, salinity, and sea level spanning the period 1968-2001... >>Read More<<

Hybrid Perks May Become Problems
The purchase of a hybrid car is more and more likely to put its driver into a privileged class of motorist with access to carpool lanes, special parking spots and other perks -- the kinds of things most drivers can only dream about when they're stuck in traffic or circling a block... >>Read More<<

Upper-Ocean Heat Content Variability 1956-2003
How has the heat content of the upper portion of earth's global ocean varied over the past fifty years? In a study designed to answer this question, Levitus et al. (2005) conducted Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analyses of gridded, yearly (1956-2003), ocean heat content fields for the 0- to 700-m layer of the global ocean in order to describe the geographic patterns of ocean heat content variability... >>Read More<<

GREENLAND ICE SHEETS ARE GROWING DESPITE PREDICTIONS OF A THAW TRIGGERD BY GLOBAL WARMING
Recent growth in the interior regions of the Greenland Ice Sheet is reported by a Norwegian-led team of climate scientists... >>Read More<<

Responses to Hansen
"Obviously I do not think the government has the right to silence a scientist for stating his scientific view. However I have rather mixed feelings about this case, and find I am sympathizing more with the government... >>Read More<<

ON FIRST ANNIVERSARY, KYOTO'S FUTURE LOOKS BLEAK
Washington, D.C., February 14, 2006-As the Kyoto Protocol reaches its first anniversary since going into force internationally on February 16, 2005, the Competitive Enterprise Institute's assessment is that the UN global warming treaty continues to slide quickly toward ignominious collapse... >>Read More<<

SLOUCHING TOWARD SCIENTIFIC MCCARTHYISM
In the 20 February 2006 issue of The New Republic, John B. Judis has an article about how the issue of hurricanes and global warming has been handled by NOAA. Judis is engaging in scientific McCarthyism by arguing that certain perspectives on science are invalid because they are viewed as politically incorrect by some. ... >>Read More<<

RECENT ICE-SHEET GROWTH IN THE INTERIOR OF GREENLAND
A continuous data set of Greenland Ice Sheet altimeter height from ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites, 1992 to 2003, has been analyzed... >>Read More<<

ASIAN SCIENTISTS DISPUTE GORE'S DOOMSDAY SCENARIO
NOT everyone was pleased with the way former US Vice President Al Gore was given "celebrity" treatment when he spoke as a crusader against global warming in Manila... >>Read More<<

GLOBAL WARMING AND THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET
The Greenland coastal temperatures have followed the early 20th century global warming trend. Since 1940, however, the Greenland coastal stations data have undergone predominantly a cooling trend... >>Read More<<

BRITAIN SET FOR SPAT WITH EC OVER CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
Britain, a self-styled global leader in combating climate change, is set for a new legal showdown with the European commission over government plans to allow businesses to pump out more greenhouse gases under the EU's carbon emissions trading scheme... >>Read More<<

USHCN Temperature Record of the Week: Elizabeth City, NC
To bolster our claim that "There Has Been No Net Global Warming for the Past 70 Years," each week we highlight the temperature record of one of the 1221 U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) stations from 1930-2000... >>Read More<<

STORM RESEARCHERS DON'T SEE EYE TO EYE
Boulder - Storm researchers Tuesday squabbled over why the last Atlantic hurricane season was the most dangerous on record - and what should be done about it... >>Read More<<

Greenland and Global Warming
Recent popular media coverage of climate change issues has presented a scary scenario in which human-induced global warming will give rise to a new ice age... >>Read More<<